The history of fisheries management is full of instances in which regulators have failed to anticipate the behavioral response of fishermen to a policy intervention. Such surprises can largely be ascribed to a poor understanding of the multiple margins across which fishermen can act. Much economic analysis oversimplifies the fishing production process by collapsing margins of fishing behavior—such as the use of fishing gear over space and time—into aggregated and general production and cost functions. Using numerical simulations together with an empirical investigation of the Bering Sea groundfish fishery, our research demonstrates that aggregated models of fishing behavior provide policy makers with inadequate, and possibly misleading, information on which to base predictions regarding the extent and nature of a fishing industry’s response to a policy change. Our research suggests that accurate assessment of the effects of a policy intervention requires a description of the fishing production process that is sufficiently “deep” so as to be invariant to changes in management institutions.

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